Consumer Reports Said Ford's 47 mpg claim is too high for both vehicles

There are questions regarding Ford's C-Max Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid's advertised 47 mpg, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) intends to check it out.

Ford's C-Max Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid both show an estimated 47 mpg, but Consumer Reports recently pointed out that neither are living up to the automaker's claims. According to its testing, the C-Max Hybrid received 35/38/37 mpg for city/highway/combined. For the Fusion Hybrid, it found 35/41/39 mpg for city/highway/combined.

"Yes, the disclaimer on EPA fuel-economy labels notes that your results may differ," said Consumer Reports. "But the overall mpg for these C-Max and Fusion models is off by a whopping 10 and 8 mpg, respectively, or about 20 percent. Our overall-mpg results are usually pretty close to the EPA's combined-mpg estimate. Among current models, more than 80 percent of the vehicles we've tested are within 2 mpg."

2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid

Ford responded to the claims, saying that mileage varies among hybrids.

"Early C-Max Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid customers praise the vehicles and report a range of fuel economy figures, including some reports above 47 mpg," said Ford spokesman Wes Sherwood. "This reinforces the fact that driving styles, driving conditions and other factors can cause mileage to vary."

While all vehicles must undergo the EPA test for fuel efficiency, the test isn't actually administered by the government agency. Instead, automakers perform the test and the EPA reviews it. In many cases, factors like temperature and speed result in gas mileage being lower than the EPA sticker.

2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid

Ford's testing found 47 mpg overall for both vehicles, and while it's common for the EPA to review such claims and discover a variation in gas mileage, Consumer Reports complained that this is a pretty big gap between Ford's findings and its own.

The EPA said it will "look at the report and data."

Back in December 2011, Consumer Watchdog called on the EPA to investigate Hyundai over its fuel economy claims. Hyundai claimed that its Elantra achieved 29 MPG in the city and 40 MPG on highway. However, the organization received a higher-than-usual number of complaints that real-world mileage was in the mid-20 mpg range.

From there, the EPA investigated Hyundai for misleading mileage claims and found that the fuel economy estimates of most of its 2012-2013 models were inflated. The same goes for Kia. Both Kia and Hyundai will be lowering the fuel economy estimates on the majority of their 2012 to 2013 models after EPA testing discovered a gap between its data and what both of the companies are claiming.

Hyundai and Kia admitted to overstating the estimated fuel economy on window stickers of about 900,000 vehicles sold since late 2010. Reports show that Hyundai alone could spend $100 million trying to fix the fiasco.

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